France Télévisions Green-Lighted “SUPER-LUCHA”

Ennio (10 yo) lives in Mexiquito, a small Mexican town set between desert plains and sun-drenched green hills. He’s from a long line of Super-Luchadores, masked vigilantes who fight the forces of evil. Accompanied by his best friends Pablo and Lili and a newcomer Helena, Ennio will discover that becoming a member of the Super-Lucha is no easy task.

SUPER-LUCHA, produced by Mathieu Courtois for Oscar nomimated French production company Vivement Lundi !, will be directed by Goulwen Merret, a French animator born in Mexico City. Merret went back to his childhood to develop the story. The heroes of his childhood were not Marvel heroes but wrestlers (or luchadores in Spanish) called Mil Màscaras, Canek or Huracàn Ramìrez.

Watch the trailer here

To write the original script, he worked with Suzie Le Texier. He co-signed the original design with Agnès Lecreux, known as creator and director of the stop-motion TV series DIMITRI awarded with an Industry Excellence Award for Character Design at Manchester Animation Festival 2019.

Mathieu Courtois says:

SUPER-LUCHA will be the first Mexican stop-motion manga. In this film, Goulwen will combine three elements that have long inspired him: the narrative style borrowed from Japanese animation, the Mexican world of his childhood and its legends, and stop-motion inspired by hand-crafted pinatas.

Pitched at Cartoon Forum 2020, the project was comitted by France Télévisions Jeunesse and followed a classical development process between the creative team and the broadcaster.

Vivement Lundi ! raised development money from the CNC, the Breton regional fund Bretagne Cinéma, from the Breton local TVs TVR, Tébéo, TébéSud and France 3 Bretagne, from la Procirep and Angoa and from the EU fund Creative Europe. French company Autour de Minuit is in charge of the international sales.